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In my opinion, when you're just starting out you take what you can get and don't make any friends because these are the people you'll eventually phase out for better customers. My first year I took everything and I kept all but two up until this 4th year. I've got a few bi-weekly customers but I've dropped the "on call" lawns. I'm about to drop two bi-weekly lawns for a larger property and perhaps it will fund a bigger mower.

Makes sense. I'm on season "2" and I'm already refusing that "I'll call you when I need you" bullcrap. Get on my schedule, or get out of my contact list.
There are several clients that I really like as "people" (and they are great clients in general), but they don't pay squat. As I pick up more revenue-generating properties, they will unfortunately have to be cut loose.

Being "nice" by mowing the elderly lady's lawn for pennies may get you through the pearly gates, but it doesn't mean squat to the electric company, gas company, phone company, insurance company...

I just took on another biweekly today. UGH!!! LOL

The ONE positive to accepting them, is that if it's a lawn that isn't overgrown in 2 weeks, you can actually make more money on it. (IF you have the brains to charge MORE FOR BIWEEKLY)

This one was a guy I cut biweekly last year. $60/cut - one of my highest priced jobs. I mowed while the house was on the market. He ended up renting the house and the renters were responsible for the lawn.
He called today - it's back on the market and he wanted to know if I'd like the job again. Heck yeah. It was a beast last year with a 21" mower, but now that I have my walk behind, that $60/cut is much more profitable. (Plus I cut several other lawns on that street, so it's convenient)

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That's $2/minute which extrapolates to about $120/hour. Now if you could line up a bunch of those all in one stop you could actually get near that amount otherwise you need to consider drive time. My minimum is $20 per mow so I love jobs like that.

Yeah that's my point, there's got to be a minimum price that covers making the trip.

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Yeah that's my point, there's got to be a minimum price that covers making the trip.

I see. My point was that the money is in the small lawns. If you can get a tight and efficient route you can make far more money per hour cutting 40 $20 lawns than you can cutting 20 $40 lawns. Another benefit to having a larger number of smaller lawns is attrition affects you less. In other words, having 100 customer paying $20 each and losing 2 matters little; just replace them. Having 20 customers paying $100 and losing 2 is a bigger deal. That'll give you stomach problems.

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I see. My point was that the money is in the small lawns. If you can get a tight and efficient route you can make far more money per hour cutting 40 $20 lawns than you can cutting 20 $40 lawns. Another benefit to having a larger number of smaller lawns is attrition affects you less. In other words, having 100 customer paying $20 each and losing 2 matters little; just replace them. Having 20 customers paying $100 and losing 2 is a bigger deal. That'll give you stomach problems.

That's just dumb. I won't drop my gate for less than $100.

Ooops. Wrong forum entirely.

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I see. My point was that the money is in the small lawns. If you can get a tight and efficient route you can make far more money per hour cutting 40 $20 lawns than you can cutting 20 $40 lawns. Another benefit to having a larger number of smaller lawns is attrition affects you less. In other words, having 100 customer paying $20 each and losing 2 matters little; just replace them. Having 20 customers paying $100 and losing 2 is a bigger deal. That'll give you stomach problems.

True. Right now I'm trying to diversify my clientele. I want to have a good mix of both small and large residential accounts. Ultimately , though, I want to add commercial accounts in the mix. They pay on time and honor the contract.

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Makes sense. I'm on season "2" and I'm already refusing that "I'll call you when I need you" bullcrap. Get on my schedule, or get out of my contact list.
There are several clients that I really like as "people" (and they are great clients in general), but they don't pay squat. As I pick up more revenue-generating properties, they will unfortunately have to be cut loose.

Being "nice" by mowing the elderly lady's lawn for pennies may get you through the pearly gates, but it doesn't mean squat to the electric company, gas company, phone company, insurance company...

I just took on another biweekly today. UGH!!! LOL

The ONE positive to accepting them, is that if it's a lawn that isn't overgrown in 2 weeks, you can actually make more money on it. (IF you have the brains to charge MORE FOR BIWEEKLY)

This one was a guy I cut biweekly last year. $60/cut - one of my highest priced jobs. I mowed while the house was on the market. He ended up renting the house and the renters were responsible for the lawn.
He called today - it's back on the market and he wanted to know if I'd like the job again. Heck yeah. It was a beast last year with a 21" mower, but now that I have my walk behind, that $60/cut is much more profitable. (Plus I cut several other lawns on that street, so it's convenient)

The lawns down here right now are barely growing much less overgrown after two weeks so it works out for me. I do charge a slight bit more for bi-weekly lawns but I also cluster them. When I started up most of my lawns came via my parents neighborhood (where this all began by accident :-)) so they are all within a mile of each other. Several of them I can offload once and do multiple lawns - which saves time and money. I think if the lawns were spread out I might not be as okay keeping them. In fact I did drop one lawn this season because it was an outlyer from ALL my other lawns so it didn't make sense to keep it.

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I sent a client a text today stating that I needed to go to weekly service until the lawn "slows down".
I was almost hoping she would refuse so I could rid myself of the job, but she was OK with it. At least it won't look like crap after I cut it now.

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My bi-weekly are properties that are not being watered so I do not have a problem with them. My issue has been lots that have not been mowed is sometime and it is way above my knees. I stopped doing them, and saw two guys doing one that I turne down with two weed eaters. To each his own.